Everyone always asks the same questions.

For the oldies, it was when JFK was topped, for us it's just: Where were you? What were you doing?

I was just coming through the door of my house after one of my first days of grammar school. For me, September 11th 2001 was just a normal day being a stupid year 7 kid in a massive blazer with a stupid rucksack containing scant more than a pencil case and a biology textbook. The first time I became aware of the violent collision of plane and building, the intense heat of ignited aircraft fuel and the silent despair of the 'jumpers', was when I passed by the living room where my mother was watching the news. She said 'terrible things happening in America' to which I grunted in reply and shot off upstairs to play on the playstation. I was 13, why would I care about what was going on in the US? Doesn't affect me.

Except, it does. In a fundamental way, and this post is one about perceptions, relations, attitudes, cultures and emotions as I struggled to understand the following questions:

Why does 9/11 affect me? How does 9/11 affect me? What can I do about it?

Before I start, let me just say that I haven't sat down and actively confronted these issues before. They have always been there, and I've had a decade to chew over my responses, but I've never sat down and gone 'right, this is my response'. I suppose the 10th anniversary is as good a time as any to attempt it, and as a caveat, none of the following is a concrete, immutable answer, but is the best I can do at the current time.

Let me just make one thing clear: it may seem hypocritical that I lambast prejudices, but appear to go on and make them. I'm speaking from what I perceived to happen either through how I noticed the zeitgeist shifting, personal anecdotes, or from the evolution of news reporting. Do I believe that there are a lot of people, regardless of culture, who are honest, decent and appreciate people for their personality and not their heritage? Yes, and you're one of them if you're reading this. Do I also believe that Western society is conflicted about how to proceed with its openess to the outside World due to the events of 9/11 and subsequent distrust of other cultures? Evidently.

Growing Pains

Puberty sucks. It really sucks, and if you want to smugly assert that it doesn't then you're a liar. It comes in the night and fucks with your mind, warping how you perceive people and their actions towards you. Growing up as a mixed race teenager is it's own special brand of hell, because on top of the usual biological 'woah why is that there' fluff, you've got to get to grips with who you are. Not in a 'oh, I am so a goth now, yeah society sux' way, but in a 'where is home' way. It's a difficult feeling to convey to

someone who has never experienced it before, but it lies at the heart of my thoughts, so let's take a bit of time to consider it before moving onto the more immediate cause for this post.

Being mixed race is both a blessing and a curse. On one side it exposes you to a vast cultural spectrum which fosters the ability to consider both sides of an argument and see prejudice for what it plainly is; stupid and wrong. You see the best and worst of both your parental cultures and are in a somewhat unique position to observe objectively. But on the other side, you are always rejected by not one, but both of your parental cultures, excluding your immediate family and friends. I'm not saying that you can't integrate successfully, or that you get bottled in the street and have to wear a yellow star or anything, but that you will always be observed as an 'outsider', implicitly or explicitly. I suspect this is far more acute if, like me, you're a blend of caucasian and non-caucasian races, given the evident skin colour, but I wouldn't say it with certainty. Not to dwell on the point, the crux of the argument I'm making is that in addition to normal puberty, you have to forge your own, unique, cultural identity(which will be a blend of parental cultures and of your proximate environment), and that's a hell of a task.

9/11: or, the Great Perception Shift: or, A Particular Shade of Brown

Before 9/11 I never really noticed much animosity towards myself or fellow non-caucasian kids. Granted, I was young and the usual 'Paki!' shit was probably around, but in the general population I think it was safe to assume that no one gave a flying fuck. It was the 90's, it was britpop, it was Tony Blair and it was MULTICULTURALISM baby, 1999 yeah yeah.

2001 soured that considerably. Suddenly people became implicitly aware, fuck, they were probablyscared of Khalid and his beard on the tube. Before, whilst it was just a joy to be immersing yourself in the great cultural melting point because everyone was wearing lime green and baby blue suits and that was just fantastic, it was now time to do what humans do best: go back to your own. Go back to your own clan, look at your castle walls, keep your allegiances strong because someone's just thrown a plane-shaped arrow at the defenses. It's not a bad thing, per se, it's no more than a psychological reflex when being attacked by an outside influence.

It's here that it may become apparent why I talked about being mixed race. Having no concrete 'native' culture to receed to, or have any easy point of reference for my opinions on immigration, religion, multiculturalism, politics and civilisation, made it terribly difficult to know what to do when it came to asserting myself as an individual in the new land.

To elaborate on my previous, castle, metaphor: Whilst everyone went to their respective forts, I was left riding around in the field. I could go to either of two forts, and they would take me in, perhaps gladly, perhaps begrudgingly, but I would always be brandishing a different crest, wearing different armour.

The Death of my Yellow Liberal Dream

I mentioned before that as a mixed race kid, I had to forge my own cultural identity given the inherent difficulty of latching onto one of my parents'. Part of the mix that resulted was my tendency to have a socially liberal agenda - perhaps this stems from the objectivity trait I gained from being mixed race, I don't know. What has been startling though is a somewhat delayed shift away from liberalisim through the noughties. I found myself fighting a side that was increasingly becoming a corner due to a confluence of influences: the evident re-assessment of the outside World, a dissatisfaction with current Government policies, economic turmoil, demographic upheaval etc.

It is all too sobering to remember that not too long ago the BNP were actually gaining some political clout in areas, with MEPs being elected and representatives on the London Assembly. Calls over immigration have become more intense in recent years, multiculturalism has well and truly died a shameful and heart-breakingly sad death in recent times. We now live in a hypocrisy; a World where there is a call to re-assert 'Britishness' but no one can offer a description of what being 'British' is beyond mere cultural artefacts - watching football, drinking in the pub and shit weather lol yh. As a result we lash out and restrict other cultures rather than assert our own - Ban the Burqas, Shift the Gypos, No Ground Zero Mosque, Fuck the EU. On the bus the other day we passed a bus shelter on which someone had scrawled

Egypt, Somalia, Romania, Gypsies, Canada, Brazil [More random countries] .... , Please leave us poor Welsh people alone, we've suffered enough you BASTARDS.

Not an accurate representation of the wider sentiment by any means, but it just struck me and I thought it was appropriate to share.

Liberalism is still strong in many senses, as the British, inherently, are rather liberal. By and large we believe in giving people equal rights regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or whatever - this is more than can be said for our younger American cousins, who are going through their own civil right fights. However, it is becoming increasingly rare to find liberal attitudes to the wider World, and I fear that this is common among many Western countries - Germany is one of the more obvious recent examples. My liberal agenda will always be around, but 9/11 has changed the way in which it manifests itself, and the composition of mainstream liberal policy.

Islam.

Ugh, no getting around this one. This is the big one, isn't it?

So. Let me start by saying a couple of things: I'm not a good muslim - in fact, most muslims wouldn't consider me a muslim at all. I've been called a 'Kafir' (unbeliever) many a time, and told that I was going to hell, which is just grand. However, I do feel that I have some weight in assessing Islam post 9/11 if not just for my Sudanese half. Take it, as with the rest of this post, however you want to.

George Bush and Tony Blair banged on a lot about the preceeding decade to be a 'war on terror' not a 'war on Islam'. The problem here is that Islam is so inherently involved in all this mess that if you attack one thing, you implicitly attack a shitload of things related to it, and there's a damn good chance you're going to attack Islam as well. Islam, as a religion, is not really understood by the Western World. I'd actually go so far as to say that all the Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam, aren't really understood by the mass public in much depth beyond artefacts and Christmas holidays and the Easter bunny.

For example; did you know that in Islam, Jesus is a prophet, like Muhammed? Did you know that Islam, is - in broad terms - the sequel to Christianity? Christianity 2/Judaism 3: The Kaaba-ing.

In any case, there has been a startling backlash against Islam. I've had so many debates where people, erstwhile reasonable and respectable, call it 'poisonous' and 'hateful', and I have no doubt that 9/11 and subsequent terrorism influenced that opinion greatly. As much as I say 'guys, terrorism is driven by deeper socio-political motives with religion just used as a paper thin excuse!' no one will listen. It's so much easier to go Islam=bad, especially given that the Islamic World is in legitimate turmoil and consists of largely developing nations in conflict, and the conflicts between Islam and the State. When you think Islam, you can't help but think of protestors declaring death on politicians and burning effigies, which is a crushingly sad indictment of the World we live in. I remember in year 8 I was asked in the changing rooms whether or not I was a terrorist; attitudes towards Muslims have been changed and it's perceptible at all ages and from all cultures.

One of the more frustrating lines of argument over the past decade has been 'where are the moderates?' We're here. We're your neighbours, we're your friends, your nurses, doctors, teachers, economists whatever, we are here. But it's not our job, or our duty to be ambassadors for our faith. Or is it?

Conclusion: I breathe on the glass and write 'hello'

This post has largely been about me looking at the outside World and considering the changes that affected me most as I grew up. But to conclude, I have to look at myself and consider how I must adapt and have adapted to external pressures.

Like it or not, in most eyes I'm not initially treated as a neutral, but people will see my skin colour and immediately assume. What they assume I don't dare wish to know, but I do notice things. People might give me a slight glance as I pass them on the street, sit down beside them on the bus or step onto a tube train. not everyone, and not any specific 'category' of person either, but it's there and it can't all be in my head. People automatically assume I'm not British - that I've had conversations which involve:

"So where do you come from?" "Oh, I'm Scottish, but I live in Cardiff/canterbury" "Oh..." "...And I'm half Sudanese" "Oh, yes of course!"

Is as good an indicator as any that perceptions are slow to change. I was once yelled at in the bus station by a man who thought I was cutting the queue (I was, but that's by the by):

I Don't know where you came from, but in this country we queue!

This wasn't met with astonishment and disgust as I had expected/hoped, but people seemed to agree with him. It made my blood boil. I'm from this country you fucking cunt! You shit headed ignorant wanking cunt fucker!

Of course, I didn't say that. I'm a reasonable person, but I do have my moments of anger and that was one of them. I'm glad that I didn't say it, because I've come to realise that, like it or not, I have to be an ambassador for myself. I have to be the moderate muslim that people can refer to when they say they've got an Islamic friend, or the mixed race person that people can be friends with and see that skin colour really doesn't mean anything, and heritage isn't all that.

9/11 had a lot of big impacts on policy and whatnot, you all know this. But on a personal level it really affected who I am and how I perceive my place in wider society and my corresponding duties and responsibilities in that society. Like it or not, culture is not immutable and it does change. In fact, over the past decade Britain has changed so much because of the events of a sunny September's morning in New York, an Ocean away.

What's important now is that we retake control and steer that change towards a natural, right and just cause. I never asked for my position in all this; but I felt, and still feel, the shockwaves of United Airlines Flight 175 as it crashes through steel, glass, space and time to my life, and I realise that I have the most wonderful opportunity, the most privileged position and the most difficult task.

Better not fuck it up.

-Hisham